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Roberta Williams and Alex Austin took Kimber Roman's two children, Tonya (10 yrs. old) and Steve (5 yrs.), to see their mother. It was a mistake. Young Steve was so terrified of the hospital smell and of all the tubes sticking in his mom, it was all he could do to touch her. She felt cold and sticky.
Back at the office they were sharing, Roberta and Alex found the attorney general's department in turmoil. Assistant AG Rosa Kirkland had taken over for the time being and had stressed to all agents "the need," which she said she was sure Kimber Roman would agree with, "to keep focused---to do your job."111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHcAPIlBa2g
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Thus, some days later, Roberta Williams, down in Quantico, was trying to do just that. Her shoulder length auburn hair out of the way in a ponytail, legs apart in the crouch position, she held the Sig Sauer P239, its grip specially designed for a woman's smaller hand, its mag capacity reduced from 10 to 7 rounds of 9mm Parabellum. She inhaled, let half the air escape, felt the first pressure of the trigger, then squeezed it on the second. Her shot wasn't dead center but was on the edge of the bullseye. She was among the FBI's best and brightest and one of the few women to have passed the bureau's required trigger-pressure test----twenty-nine pulls in 30 seconds. Alex Austin in the next stall nodded approvingly at Roberta's shot. Struck again by her figure, silken red hair, and blue eyes that seemed unafraid of anything, Austin looked on as if waiting to admire her next shot when all he was doing was watching her breath. You had to be careful these days---a woman only had to utter the term "sexual harassment" and you were guilty until proven innocent, instead of the other way 'round. Besides, the FBI and BATF were very leery of "relationships" among male and female agents. She inhaled again, began to exhale, held it, then fired. A bullseye!111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsigomWCUzW
"Good shooting, Agent Williams!"111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrYC5M5z2e3
She made a little bow. "Thank you, Agent Alex."111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3asbHHXbSy
He had a fantasy of him rescuing her from a hostage situation. She would be so grateful, so moved and excited by his courage t hat...111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm8YTYyYyno
"Feel like a coffee?" she asked.111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0KC46F8Ut8
"Sure." He held the firing-range door open for her and watched her walk ahead of him. Her white blouse and navy-blue derriere moved symphonically with the tempo of his sudden lust, and he wondered what it was that had attracted her to the FBI. Austin was still old-fashioned enough to think it a little odd that women should be packing heat, except when he actually met a woman who did. Then he didn't mind, especially in the case of Roberta. Her trick was that she'd managed to retain a certain feminine mystique about her, even though those blue eyes expressed a Thatcher-like determination to get things done, no matter who or what stood in her way. No engagement ring, not even a whitish mark where a recent ring might have been. Could it be that she was gay?111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE5z2Q6ging
They walked over to Starbuck's. He said he'd get the coffee if she grabbed two of the window seats, which she did, rearranging a mess of morning papers. Austin knew the type well enough---a place for everything and everything in its place. Below The New York Times' update about Kimber Roman---no change---there was a report under the heading SAGEBRUSH BLITZKREIG. It was about an armed confrontation out west between Ecotopians and a fleet of Arizona State Police cars who were, at the time, providing protection and security for a road construction convoy.111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcAIXsHZCNZ
"Too much whipped milk," said Austin as he put down the caffe latte. She took a spoon to the froth and licked. "You've got a white mustache," he said. "Like those stupid milk commercials."111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdeeFlTVYNW
"I know," and her tongue slid slowly over her top lip. She caught him looking at her with more than coffee on his mind.
"How are you enjoying the job so far?" Alex asked.
She gave him such a generous smile he felt instantly closer to her. She wasn't wasting time on trite openers. "Well," she said, "I must confess I don't enjoy the early-morning workout. It's what I'd call----a little excessive. Don't quote me on that."
"I won't." He smiled back at her. "You'll like it better in the field." She sipped the coffee and pressed the napkin to her lips. There was an awkward silence. To fill it she pointed to the story about the trouble out west. It recapped the bombing of the Maple Development Company's main office in '94, the ski resort arson at Vail Colorado in '95 and the '96 confrontation between the FBI and the Montana chapter of the People's Dominion of Ecotopia. The PDOE claimed responsibility for breaking into movie actor Christian Todd's mink ranch at Mount Angel and freeing more than 12,000 minks, the largest animal release in U.S. history. The PDOE refused to disclose the location of the missing minks, gave seminars to members on how to "resist interrogation," refused to recognize federal or local laws, and advocated independence from the United States. They even threatened to hang several local business moguls.
"Pretty testy lot!" said Alex. "You think there's any connection to the attempt on the AG?"111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfNdvkU0bRZ
Alberta shrugged. "They all hate guns, and Roman's endorsement by the NRA. You see any new intelligence on the PDOE? Internal stuff?"
"Not much," Austin answered. "There's so many of those nuts around the country I've lost track of...."
She looked surprise.
Suddenly Alex Austin felt irrationally guilty, as if he'd flunked some kind of IQ test, and badly. "Like you," he said, "we have to keep a watch out for them, but we can't be spying on every crackpot in America."
"Who said they're crackpots?"
"Don't you think they are?" Now it was his turn to be shocked.
"Some of them, yeah." She was holding the coffee mug with both hands, as if they were near a fireplace in the dead of winter instead of spring. Cozy. "But even among the crackpots there's often an element of truth---I mean a legitimate beef---that's got out of hand, if you know what I mean."
"They don't see themselves as political."
" "Course not," said Roberta. "They say they hate politics, politicians and lobbyists, but they're as political as any of the people they don't like. 'Cept they seem to put more trust in bullets than ballots."
"True."
They'd recall this conversation a week later, on a cold day in April, as they marched in a drizzling rain to pay their final respects to Kimber Roman.111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiwe6W2szam
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As the funeral cortege made its slow and solemn way up the hill in Arlington National Cemetery, where early-spring blossoms were dulled by the rain, the late attorney general's two children, Tonya holding her little brother's hand, walked out of step, behind the flag-draped coffin. An honor guard of marines marched in slow time to the mournful beat of a lone drum. Behind the children and relatives came a very angry Skylar Morris in full-dress army uniform, his rows of ribbons hidden by his topcoat, the left side of his face still freckled by the little cuts and abrasions from the blast, the black patch still over his left eye.111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP6s6cx7FMS
As the burial proceeded Morris's anger grew to silent rage.111Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKwRrqLdH1V
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